Rodríguez Saá claims victory, Duhalde rejects results in PJ Federal pre-primaries

As Alberto Rodríguez Saá claimed victory in the pre-primaries elections taking place in the northwestern provinces of Tucumán, Catamarca and Santiago del Estero, Duhalde campaign officials announced that the pre-presidential candidate will not recognize the election results since the whole process is "an illusion." They also said authorities in the party's Coordination Board would have to meet in the next few days "to try and find a way to solve this problem.”

Rodríguez Saá announced that he had gathered a 97 percent of the votes against Eduardo Duhalde, even though the former president had announced he wouldn’t be participating in the elections.

“I’m very happy,” he said. “Two weeks ago, at this hour, we announced the election results in the city of Buenos Aires. Duhalde emerged victorious that day, and I hugged him and shook his hand. Last week, after the elections in the northeast, Duhalde came to me and I shook his hand again. I just hope Duhalde will come and congratulate me tonight,” he said.

Regarding Duhalde’s decision to drop out of the race, he said it was “regrettable.”

“The only thing I can think of right now is that the Federal Peronism should come together in order to restart the dialogue” between both factions, he said.

However, a few hours before the election came to an end, Duhalde’s campaign manager Carlos Brown stated that the whole election “was an illusion, born from a unilateral decision by Alberto Rodríguez Saá.” He also accused the San Luis governor of maintaining a “capricious attitude,” and “unilaterally changing the rules in the last minute.”

“We still need to see what happens with the pre-primaries scheduled for the coming weeks. The Coordination Board authorities (Ramón Puerta, Adolfo Rodríguez Saá and Juan Carlos Romero), will have to meet in the next few days to try and find a way to solve this,” Brown told the BuenosAiresHerald.com, suggesting that the future pre-primaries might be at stake.

“The Coordination Board issued a statement regretting the disagreement within the Electoral Committee (composed of six officials, three from political each sector), and urging the parts not to make any unilateral decisions,” he explained.

But, according to Brown, Rodríguez Saá decided to “continue with this capricious attitude. He’s the one running the election, supervising the polling stations,” therefore “this whole process has no value.”

“Since these pre-primaries are the result of an agreement between parts, once the agreement is terminated, the election is over. There’s no Electoral Committee supervising the election, therefore, the results are invalid” he said.

Brown then explained that the disagreement among members of the Electoral Committee was due to Rodríguez Saá’s intentions to just carry the elections in the three provincial capitals instead of following the original plan, which was to vote in cities with over 30,000 voters.

Earlier, Rodríguez Saá was visiting several schools in the Tucumán province when he referred to his opponent's decision to quit the elections. “No candidate decides to quit if they’re certain they are going to win,” he said.

As he visited the José Marmol School, located in the province’s capital, the presidential hopeful repeated that “the only way to choose a candidate is through the popular vote.”

“No candidate decides to quit if they’re certain they are going to win. If they quit it’s because they’re afraid of a defeat,” he said, two days after Duhalde announced that he was bowing out of the elections.

“We’ve avoided an embarrassment and accepted these elections. We came and voted, as we previously agreed. I regret Duhalde’s attitude,” he concluded.